Description and release of Australian gravity field model testing data

Abstract

Gravimetric geoid and/or quasigeoid models are routinely evaluated using co-located GPS-levelling and/or astrogeodetic vertical deflections, globally and regionally. This short note describes these ground-truth data for Australia as of August 2017, which are provided as Electronic Supplementary Material. We provide ~7500 GPS-derived ellipsoidal heights, normal-orthometric heights from the 1971 adjustment of the Australian Height Datum, normal heights from a readjustment of levelling constrained to a model of the ocean's mean dynamic topography, and ~1000 historical astrogeodetic vertical deflections. Updates to these data will be posted on the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping GitHub repository (<a href="https://github.com/icsm-au">https://github.com/icsm-au</a>), together with a readme.txt file describing them.